Dodging a bullet does not even begin to describe this near debacle, with Akron having shots into the end zone on the final four plays!
Local news coverage here.
Local news coverage here.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Game: The Room
Posted on 9:44 AM by Unknown
My daughter and I have been playing "The Room" for the last couple of weeks. It is more of a puzzle than a game, and we have been doing it cooperatively rather than competitively which makes it even less game-like, but it is great fun. The puzzles are hard enough that you have to think a bit, but not so hard that you don't figure them out in finite time (and, of course, there are walkthroughs to be had all over the interwebs). And the game is visually stunning. Indeed, that may be its strongest feature. The sounds are fun too.
Recommended.
Recommended.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
In praise of payday lenders
Posted on 7:15 AM by Unknown
From the Atlantic, something I never thought I would see: a thoughtful, empirically grounded defense of payday lenders and other alternative financial service providers for the poor written by a non-economist.
The piece does a very good job of highlighting the strengths of ethnographic work.
Of course, the policy paragraph at the end falls short of the standard set by the remainder of the discussion, but I suppose one can't have everything.
The piece does a very good job of highlighting the strengths of ethnographic work.
Of course, the policy paragraph at the end falls short of the standard set by the remainder of the discussion, but I suppose one can't have everything.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Interdisciplinary Seminar in Quantitative Methods
Posted on 7:35 AM by Unknown
Local readers will be keenly aware that the most obvious thing that we lack around here is enough seminars to go to each week. After all, there are only two labor seminars, two public finance seminars, two development seminars, two macro seminars, an economic history seminar, an econometric seminar, a Ford School faculty work-in-progress seminar, two international / trade seminars, a health economics seminar, a new energy / environment economics seminar, two applied micro / IO seminars, a high theory seminar, the population center seminar, the survey research center seminars (including the joint program in survey methodology as well as a series specific to the PSID and another series), the quantitative methodology program seminar, the STEIT seminar, the research center on group dynamics seminar and probably some others that I am forgetting.
Given that we live in the center of a "seminar desert", I am delighted to note the arrival of a new seminar that looks to become one of my favorites: the ISQM or Interdisciplinary Seminar on Quantative Methods. You can find the schedule here. The initial meeting today features my friend Susan Murphy from the statistics department on (what I would call) statistical treatment rules. I'll be there.
Given that we live in the center of a "seminar desert", I am delighted to note the arrival of a new seminar that looks to become one of my favorites: the ISQM or Interdisciplinary Seminar on Quantative Methods. You can find the schedule here. The initial meeting today features my friend Susan Murphy from the statistics department on (what I would call) statistical treatment rules. I'll be there.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Cheaters welcome at Harvard
Posted on 12:51 PM by Unknown
This survey of the incoming class, reported in the Harvard Crimson, is a bit troubling.
Of course, this is what folks at Chicago suspected all along.
Hat tip: anonymous insider
Of course, this is what folks at Chicago suspected all along.
Hat tip: anonymous insider
Fantasy economics
Posted on 12:48 PM by Unknown
A proposal (apparently serious) for a REPEC fantasy economist league.
I am speechless.
Hat tip: Charlie Brown
I am speechless.
Hat tip: Charlie Brown
Monday, September 9, 2013
Assorted links
Posted on 1:37 PM by Unknown
1. How to save Microsoft? Sounds like things have come a long way from when they used to mock the corporate culture at IBM (e.g. "the guy with the neuron is in today").
2. Dissecting a year of ESPN SportsCenter.
3. Klaus Zimmerman on how Europeans can learn useful lessons about inequality from the US.
4. Being an "ambassador" for the UM-Notre Dame night game.
5. Advice on applied econometrics from David Giles. I would generalize (1) to "get to know the basic patterns in the data really well before doing anything too sophisticated." I would tone down (7) a bit, but not too much. I would translate (9) as "be a casual Bayesian".
Hat tip on #2 to ASAK.
2. Dissecting a year of ESPN SportsCenter.
3. Klaus Zimmerman on how Europeans can learn useful lessons about inequality from the US.
4. Being an "ambassador" for the UM-Notre Dame night game.
5. Advice on applied econometrics from David Giles. I would generalize (1) to "get to know the basic patterns in the data really well before doing anything too sophisticated." I would tone down (7) a bit, but not too much. I would translate (9) as "be a casual Bayesian".
Hat tip on #2 to ASAK.
Florida kills its economics doctoral program
Posted on 7:32 AM by Unknown
Coverage from the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Florida Alligator (alternative) student newspaper.
How can you be a flagship and not really have an economics department - let alone imagine that you will make it into the upper tier of public universities?
How can you deal with 600-some undergraduate majors with six faculty members and no gradual students?
More broadly, something is very wrong with Florida's accounting process. Economics majors are really cheap to produce: they consume almost entirely large chalk-and-talk lecture classes, along with a bit of computing. There are no expensive labs or other equipment, and not many small classes. The university should see the department as a profit center. That they do not suggests something is amiss with their budget process (probably having to do with accounting across units, in this case the busyness school and the arts and sciences faculty, as hinted at in the article).
Another way to think about this is as a selective salary cut for the remaining economics faculty. Graduate programs are essentially part of faculty compensation along with being an input into undergraduate teaching. Killing the doctoral program is an indirect reduction in faculty compensation, one that Florida can probably get away with given that the few faculty remaining in the department are relatively close to retirement and so unlikely to move.
Crazy.
Hat tips: Sarah Hamersma who, thankfully, has escaped to Syracuse.
How can you be a flagship and not really have an economics department - let alone imagine that you will make it into the upper tier of public universities?
How can you deal with 600-some undergraduate majors with six faculty members and no gradual students?
More broadly, something is very wrong with Florida's accounting process. Economics majors are really cheap to produce: they consume almost entirely large chalk-and-talk lecture classes, along with a bit of computing. There are no expensive labs or other equipment, and not many small classes. The university should see the department as a profit center. That they do not suggests something is amiss with their budget process (probably having to do with accounting across units, in this case the busyness school and the arts and sciences faculty, as hinted at in the article).
Another way to think about this is as a selective salary cut for the remaining economics faculty. Graduate programs are essentially part of faculty compensation along with being an input into undergraduate teaching. Killing the doctoral program is an indirect reduction in faculty compensation, one that Florida can probably get away with given that the few faculty remaining in the department are relatively close to retirement and so unlikely to move.
Crazy.
Hat tips: Sarah Hamersma who, thankfully, has escaped to Syracuse.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Ronald Coase, RIP
Posted on 4:07 AM by Unknown
Sad news about the passing of Ronald Coase, but it is hard to argue with living to 102.
State education expenditures
Posted on 2:00 AM by Unknown
I quite liked this CATO site that grades states on the transparency of their published numbers on educational expenditures (and not just because the title is a great pun).
Particularly interesting is the evidence on the lack of public knowledge of expenditure levels presented under the "Why Care" tab.
Particularly interesting is the evidence on the lack of public knowledge of expenditure levels presented under the "Why Care" tab.
Play: My Name is Asher Lev
Posted on 1:57 AM by Unknown
My Name is Asher Lev has one more week to go at the Performance Network in Ann Arbor and is well worth the time. All three actors, especially John Seibert who plays several roles, turn in strong performances.
Recommended.
Recommended.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Book: Paying for the Party by Armstrong and Hamilton
Posted on 7:41 PM by Unknown
Armstrong, Elizabeth and Laura Hamilton. 2013. Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
This book describes the results of a five year study of the residents of one (all-female) floor of one dormitory in one year at a very-thinly disguised Indiana University. It features an impressive amount of interview and observational evidence gathered in part via the extended presence on the dorm floor of members of the research team (one of whom is in the sociology department here at Michigan).
The book divides the students into three tracks: socialite, striver and achiever, and then describes, in two chapters for each path, the students who were more and less successful at the path. Lurking in the background - this is sociology, and usefully so - are the institutional constraints that channel students into particular paths and out of others and that help determine who succeeds and who fails within a chosen path. For the socialite path, for example, it is relevant that the university offers a number of degree programs that reward social skills as much as academic ones.
I found three aspects of the book particularly useful. First, the book is fantastic on the micro-foundations of mismatch. The mismatch emphasized here, unlike that in the economics literature, is social class mismatch, rather than academic preparation mismatch. I think the economics literature (including my papers) misses an important part of the story in that sense. This aspect of the book reminded me of the descriptions of class-based mismatch in Black Ice, which I read a long time ago (and also recommend).
Second, the book illustrates what it looks like when students from families where no one has gone to a four-year university (or maybe even a community college) show up on campus without much information about how things work and without much in the way of resources to help them figure it out. It is a real challenge for researchers in this area, who know how higher education works inside and out, to put themselves in the shoes of students who, not unreasonably given their environment, appear astoundingly clueless at times. This lack of information is important when thinking about dropout rates and about time-to-degree. Paying for the Party provides a good reminder of how it feels not to understand the institution very well.
Third, I found (as I nearly always do) the discussions of research methodology quite interesting. Some of them are relegated to an appendix. If you get the book, you should read them anyway. I thought they were some of the most interesting bits. This sort of ethnography with a group of subjects who all know each other and so talk about each other and talk about the research with each other raises all sorts of interesting questions that I had not thought about before in terms of research design and research ethics.
One always approaches the policy chapter in social science books by non-economists with some trepidation. Perhaps because my expectations were so low, this one was better than I expected. It still has some howlers, such as the pointless suggestion of doing away with the university's semi-pro basketball and football teams. But more broadly what it does (though not always on purpose) is illustrate that Americans expect universities to be lots of different things: finishing school for rich girls, gateway to social mobility for the rural and urban working class (and occasionally the poor), social class replication device for the upper middle class, bastion of the life of the mind, research powerhouse, and so on.
What I took away from the book is not that one of these purposes should predominate but that the university should try to make sure that students can make informed and successful choices about which aspects they want to indulge. It is very clear that the university studied in this book does not do a good job of this. First and foremost, it assigns students who are not party animals to the party dorm and then leaves them there without clear and easy pathways to get out. Moreover, the book is full of tales of hopeless counselors and of students who have no idea how to navigate the university and no idea how to get someone to help them do so. These are customer service basics for a university.
The authors want to draw broader conclusions than simply how to better run a large public university. I was fine with some of what they had to say, but in other cases I thought that they went astray by over-generalizing from one floor in one (party) dorm in one cohort. Still, Paying for the Party is very much recommended for those interested in the inner workers of academia from the student's viewpoint.
This book describes the results of a five year study of the residents of one (all-female) floor of one dormitory in one year at a very-thinly disguised Indiana University. It features an impressive amount of interview and observational evidence gathered in part via the extended presence on the dorm floor of members of the research team (one of whom is in the sociology department here at Michigan).
The book divides the students into three tracks: socialite, striver and achiever, and then describes, in two chapters for each path, the students who were more and less successful at the path. Lurking in the background - this is sociology, and usefully so - are the institutional constraints that channel students into particular paths and out of others and that help determine who succeeds and who fails within a chosen path. For the socialite path, for example, it is relevant that the university offers a number of degree programs that reward social skills as much as academic ones.
I found three aspects of the book particularly useful. First, the book is fantastic on the micro-foundations of mismatch. The mismatch emphasized here, unlike that in the economics literature, is social class mismatch, rather than academic preparation mismatch. I think the economics literature (including my papers) misses an important part of the story in that sense. This aspect of the book reminded me of the descriptions of class-based mismatch in Black Ice, which I read a long time ago (and also recommend).
Second, the book illustrates what it looks like when students from families where no one has gone to a four-year university (or maybe even a community college) show up on campus without much information about how things work and without much in the way of resources to help them figure it out. It is a real challenge for researchers in this area, who know how higher education works inside and out, to put themselves in the shoes of students who, not unreasonably given their environment, appear astoundingly clueless at times. This lack of information is important when thinking about dropout rates and about time-to-degree. Paying for the Party provides a good reminder of how it feels not to understand the institution very well.
Third, I found (as I nearly always do) the discussions of research methodology quite interesting. Some of them are relegated to an appendix. If you get the book, you should read them anyway. I thought they were some of the most interesting bits. This sort of ethnography with a group of subjects who all know each other and so talk about each other and talk about the research with each other raises all sorts of interesting questions that I had not thought about before in terms of research design and research ethics.
One always approaches the policy chapter in social science books by non-economists with some trepidation. Perhaps because my expectations were so low, this one was better than I expected. It still has some howlers, such as the pointless suggestion of doing away with the university's semi-pro basketball and football teams. But more broadly what it does (though not always on purpose) is illustrate that Americans expect universities to be lots of different things: finishing school for rich girls, gateway to social mobility for the rural and urban working class (and occasionally the poor), social class replication device for the upper middle class, bastion of the life of the mind, research powerhouse, and so on.
What I took away from the book is not that one of these purposes should predominate but that the university should try to make sure that students can make informed and successful choices about which aspects they want to indulge. It is very clear that the university studied in this book does not do a good job of this. First and foremost, it assigns students who are not party animals to the party dorm and then leaves them there without clear and easy pathways to get out. Moreover, the book is full of tales of hopeless counselors and of students who have no idea how to navigate the university and no idea how to get someone to help them do so. These are customer service basics for a university.
The authors want to draw broader conclusions than simply how to better run a large public university. I was fine with some of what they had to say, but in other cases I thought that they went astray by over-generalizing from one floor in one (party) dorm in one cohort. Still, Paying for the Party is very much recommended for those interested in the inner workers of academia from the student's viewpoint.
San Francisco Lusty Lady closes
Posted on 10:47 AM by Unknown
The Atlantic reports on the demise of what is surely the only unionized, worker-owned peep show.
I liked this line: "... to dismiss the idea that vulgarity and uplift can coexist side-by-side is to deny the degenerate magic of San Francisco."
My post about the Seattle Lusty Lady closing a few years ago is here.
I liked this line: "... to dismiss the idea that vulgarity and uplift can coexist side-by-side is to deny the degenerate magic of San Francisco."
My post about the Seattle Lusty Lady closing a few years ago is here.
Assorted links
Posted on 6:48 AM by Unknown
1. Michigan dorm cafeterias drop their trays. Does this count as an application of behavioral economics?
2. Seattle Public Library breaks the record for book dominoes.
3. The war on (some) drugs just keeps on giving. Can we stop now?
4. Great stuff from Camille Paglia.
5. Prospective grad student fail. At Western Ontario, we had a job candidate tell us that their adviser said they could be the "next big thing".
Hat tip on #2 to Charlie Brown. #3 and #4 via instapundit.
2. Seattle Public Library breaks the record for book dominoes.
3. The war on (some) drugs just keeps on giving. Can we stop now?
4. Great stuff from Camille Paglia.
5. Prospective grad student fail. At Western Ontario, we had a job candidate tell us that their adviser said they could be the "next big thing".
Hat tip on #2 to Charlie Brown. #3 and #4 via instapundit.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Hooking up with the data
Posted on 2:49 PM by Unknown
Another moral panic done in by empirical work.
What if all of the moral panics were just ways to sell newspapers (or their more modern equivalents) and to bring money, power, and ill-gotten warm glow to those who exploit them?
What if all of the moral panics were just ways to sell newspapers (or their more modern equivalents) and to bring money, power, and ill-gotten warm glow to those who exploit them?
Washington 38, Boise State 6
Posted on 6:37 AM by Unknown
First, the most obvious take-away from watching a game featuring two teams running fast offenses is that it is just a lot more fun to watch because there is less downtime between plays.
Second, wow! The Huskies looked great and Boise State looked, especially in the second half, frustrated and flat.
Seattle Times coverage here.
Second, wow! The Huskies looked great and Boise State looked, especially in the second half, frustrated and flat.
Seattle Times coverage here.
Michigan 59, Central Michigan 9
Posted on 6:25 AM by Unknown
Michigan's victory over "will lose for food" Central Michigan was as dominating as it was dull to watch.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Is economics a science?
Posted on 10:12 AM by Unknown
The NYT has some thoughts on the matter.
Two factual errors right of the bat:
More importantly, how is it a fact that economics has no predictive power? Economists find evidence consistent with their theories all the time. The journals are filled with such evidence. Demand curves sure seem to slope down pretty much always and everywhere. Socialism (the real kind where the government runs the economy) actually did collapse due to the coordination problems outlined in the socialist calculation debate. Even more esoteric bits of economics like signalling models have fine bodies of evidence. This sure seems like predictive power to me.
As with other articles of this sort, the authors suffer from two primary confusions. First, they confuse a subset of macroeconomics with all of economics. More importantly, they fail to see that a theory that predicts what we cannot predict is itself interesting, useful and compelling. John Cochrane at Chicago has made this point forcefully on his blog (not the exact post I remember ... couldn't find that one). Indeed, they fail to even mention this possibility.
A secondary confusion is that they talk as though theory were useful for policy without evidence, a view in the spirit of that advanced by some Austrian economists. In my experience, knowing the sign of a relationship, which is what theory typically provides, rarely suffices to make actual policy choices. Usually you need magnitudes as well, as theory often lays out forces operating in opposite directions.
In short, I read this piece as a great big muddle.
Hat tip: Tanya Byker
Two factual errors right of the bat:
The fact that the discipline of economics hasn’t helped us improve our predictive abilities suggests it is still far from being a science, and may never be. Still, the misperceptions persist. A student who graduates with a degree in economics leaves college with a bachelor of science, but possesses nothing so firm as the student of the real world processes of chemistry or even agriculture.Trivially, many economics degrees (including mine) are bachelor of arts degrees rather than bachelor of science degrees. This is easy to check, these science-minded authors (and the armies of fact-checkers at the NYT) could not be bothered.
More importantly, how is it a fact that economics has no predictive power? Economists find evidence consistent with their theories all the time. The journals are filled with such evidence. Demand curves sure seem to slope down pretty much always and everywhere. Socialism (the real kind where the government runs the economy) actually did collapse due to the coordination problems outlined in the socialist calculation debate. Even more esoteric bits of economics like signalling models have fine bodies of evidence. This sure seems like predictive power to me.
As with other articles of this sort, the authors suffer from two primary confusions. First, they confuse a subset of macroeconomics with all of economics. More importantly, they fail to see that a theory that predicts what we cannot predict is itself interesting, useful and compelling. John Cochrane at Chicago has made this point forcefully on his blog (not the exact post I remember ... couldn't find that one). Indeed, they fail to even mention this possibility.
A secondary confusion is that they talk as though theory were useful for policy without evidence, a view in the spirit of that advanced by some Austrian economists. In my experience, knowing the sign of a relationship, which is what theory typically provides, rarely suffices to make actual policy choices. Usually you need magnitudes as well, as theory often lays out forces operating in opposite directions.
In short, I read this piece as a great big muddle.
Hat tip: Tanya Byker
Friday, August 30, 2013
Movie: I'm So Excited!
Posted on 3:34 PM by Unknown
I'm So Excited got amazingly half-hearted reviews given that it comes from famous Spanish director Pedro Almodovar. I agree that it is not his best, but it is a pleasant enough bit of fluff in his signature style. I suspect that it is just a bit too 70s for our more serious age.
It is worth noting, too, that both the NYT and the other review I looked at (can't recall just where) interpret the movie outside its Spanish cultural context. Spain is still both getting over the extreme cultural conservatism of the Franco years and trying to distract itself from pretty serious economic challenges.
In any case, recommended, if you don't mind a lot of sex, drugs and disco (including a truly hilarious dance routine to the song in the movie's title).
It is worth noting, too, that both the NYT and the other review I looked at (can't recall just where) interpret the movie outside its Spanish cultural context. Spain is still both getting over the extreme cultural conservatism of the Franco years and trying to distract itself from pretty serious economic challenges.
In any case, recommended, if you don't mind a lot of sex, drugs and disco (including a truly hilarious dance routine to the song in the movie's title).
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